Part 30 (1/2)
”Pooh! Nonsense! The doctor says he's O. K. and he'll stay so.”
”That's great, Ned.”
”Funny,” said Osgood, ”but the first thing he did was to ask about you.”
”I don't see why he should care a rap about me. If it hadn't been for me--”
”Oh, cut that out! It's plain bosh. n.o.body thinks for a minute of putting it all on you, much less Hooker.”
”You know, old man, I wish I could have said something when Roy spoke up the way he did last night and declared he was to blame. I felt something-something inside of me here, but I couldn't say it to save my life. After I'm gone, I hope you'll tell Hooker that I think him a dandy, a brick, the finest fellow in the world.”
”After you're gone? What do you mean by that?”
”Of course I can't go right away with this old ankle the way it is, but when it gets better so that I can leave Oakdale--”
”Leave Oakdale!” exploded Osgood. ”Why are you going to leave Oakdale?
Tell me that.”
”Why, Ned, I don't see how I'm going to stay here. Professor Richardson was mighty decent last night, but of course I knew that was because he thought I'd had enough just then. He can't want me back in the school, and there must be lots of fellows who'd shy at me, too. Once it wouldn't have worried me if two-thirds of them had handed me the frosty, but now I'm-I'm sort of changed. I seem to be weak and lacking in backbone, and I know I couldn't stay in the school with a lot of the fellows that way, even if Prof was willing I should stay.”
”Now you listen to me, Shultzie,” said Osgood earnestly. ”I've had a talk with the professor, and he's coming to see you to-night.”
”Oh, I don't believe I want to see him again. I don't believe I can. You know I said some mighty nasty things about him behind his back. I tried to turn the fellows against him, and he knows it.”
”But you can bet he's willing to forget that, Charley, and he will never mention it unless you do. Between you and me, Prof is a pretty fine old boy. We had him sized up all wrong.”
”I reckon we did, Ned. Just because he was along in years and old-fas.h.i.+oned in some of his ways, we didn't understand him at all. You know he said last night that most men didn't understand boys. Well, it's my opinion that few boys understand men, especially men like Prof Richardson.”
”I won't put up an argument on that point. You'll be welcomed back to school by him, Shultz, and you'll be welcomed just as heartily by the fellows. Why, when Piper heard just how you owned up and tried to take all the blame, he was enthusiastic about you. Said you'd proved yourself a white man all the way through.”
”But he didn't know what I'd been through to bring me to that point.”
”That doesn't make any difference. Say, do you know the way the fellows behaved toward me made me mortally ashamed of myself? Charley, they actually thought I did something commendable last night. They seem to have the idea that just because I pulled Hooker out of the old quarry I'm a real hero. And you can't make them see it any other way, either.
Jack Nelson nearly broke my paw shaking hands with me.”
”Nelson!” muttered Shultz. ”If he only knew!”
”He does. He knows the whole business. I told him while we were alone in the woods last night.”
”And he shook hands with you to-day?”
”That's what he did.”